Problems with the Census figures.

1. There is evidence that a very significant number of foreigners don't complete the census. For example, while the 2016 census recorded nearly 20,000 Chinese people in Ireland, a Maynooth university study estimated that the real number of Chinese was as high as 100,000 back in 2006 (detail here).

2. Anyone can self-describe as "white Irish". Some percentage of non-Irish people who were either born here or acquired citizenship probably do.

3. I've seen the suggestion that Irish people should select "other" and write in "Irish" like it used to be in the census. I don't know how many people are doing this. We don't know how many Irish people aren't filling the census in at all but it's highly likely a smaller proportion than foreigners.

4. 124,019 people left the question blank, and the total for the ethnic group breakdown came out to 71,944 fewer than the listed CSO population of Ireland for 4,761,865. That's 195,963 people unaccounted for as to what their ethnicity might be (4.1%).

"Non-Irish Nationals"

In the CSO press release for the 2016 census, they presented a figure for 'non-Irish nationals' being 11.6% of the population.

This figure then gets read out on the news & radio shows. People repeat it like it's the figure for the number of foreigners living here. You even see normal people fall for it.

We get told that that the number of non-Irish nationals actually dropped from 12% in the previous census — "so what are all those far-right conspiracy loons even moaning about?"

This term 'Irish national' includes all foreigners who have been granted citizenship as well as non-Irish people who were born here.

The more citizenships are granted, the more they can reduce the figure for 'non-Irish nationals'. And they love handing them out...

It's a cheap trick to fool the public into thinking the number of foreigners here is lower than it really is. The govt uses it all the time from stats on the prison population to social housing.

When you dig into the CSO's summary report you will find figures for place of birth. It tells you 17.3% of the population were recorded as foreign-born.

"The number of Irish residents born outside Ireland continued to increase and stood at 810,406 in 2016, an increase of 43,636 on the 2011 figure."

The biggest group were born in the UK, and this includes the north where 1.2% of our population were born (see next post).

So if you take the listed figure for foreign-born (17.3%) and subtract the figure born in the north (1.2%), you come out with 16.1%.

Then the difference between the figure for the percentage of the population who are 'non-Irish nationals' (11.6%) and this figure for foreign-born (16.1%) is 4.5%.

So that 4.5% of the population represents people who were NOT born on the island of Ireland but now have Irish citizenship.

This suggests around 211,046 citizenships have been handed out to people not born here.

Some of them though will have been to Irish people who were born abroad.

You can perform some calculations using this data to suggest that around half the people born in Britain have been granted Irish citizenship.

The 2016 census was taken two months before the Brexit vote so it will be interesting to see the change.

British citizens can vote in Irish elections & referendums without needing Irish citizenship and vice versa. They just need an address here. They're probably the main migrant group who do this and who also complete the census. Bear that in mind.

If you recall, Enda Kenny took a trip to England ahead of the Brexit vote to persuade Irish people living in Britain to vote against it. I think the system we share is mutually unethical but I won't get into that here.

I'd say Brazilians (30% of whom are LGBT apparently) and most other migrant groups are significantly undercounted like the Chinese I mentioned before, so always keep that in mind when reading any CSO figures too.

No chance there are only 15,976 Brazilians here with 2,336 having Irish citizenship.

So that leaves us the question: How many people were born in Ireland to non-Irish parents...

It's a very difficult figure to gauge by looking at the census data.

You can do some very rough beer mat calculations and arrive at a figure of 3.7% of the total population but I wouldn't present that with any conviction.

The CSO do collect data on the number of people who don't speak English or Irish at home. It's probably something more practical to look at. Under the age of 18, the figure is 14.1%.

It's also worth highlighting these two stats:

🔹 A 2014 Trinity College study found 25% of children were born to "non-national mothers" (this presumably excludes the foreign-born with Irish citizenship).

🔹 25% of children are born to "non-Irish fathers" (not sure how they're differentiating Irish/non-Irish or where they got the figure)

I'm going to give you the raw data on place of birth so you have it. You can compare it to this year's data when it's released.

The CSO have changed their system for accessing the raw data. I couldn't find the birthplace data on their website when I went looking there.

The CSO used to have this great live map where you could click on the different electoral divisions and find out how much diversity is there.

This screenshot for example shows 54.5% of a district in north Dublin are foreign born.

If you click on that link now, it just says the data can't be added to the map. 🤷🏻‍♂️😥

Irish people are now a minority in two thirds of north inner city Dublin but the authorities are still laying on the initiatives to integrate the foreigners there.

At what point do they start the programmes to integrate the natives into the void of multiculturalism?

Here are twelve electoral divisions in Ireland where people who are foreign-born are more than 50% of the population.

Kilderry in Donegal has an asterisk after it. It's excluded as these would more than likely be mostly people born in the north.

Here's what the black population in Ireland looks like up close. Males in blue and females in pink for each age bracket.

Total number recorded: 64,639 or 1.4% of the overall population.

1.4% of the population but 50% of the models in ads...😁

You can see they were 3.3% of the 10-14 age bracket in 2016.

You can also see between the ages of 30 and 44, there's a lot more women than men. That's the anchor baby phenomenon.

In 1999, only 2% of babies in Ireland were born to non-nationals but by 2003, the figure was almost 20%.

Declan Keane, head doctor at Dublin's National Maternity Hospital told RTÉ that 70% of the women were coming from sub-Saharan Africa and the majority of those from Nigeria. He said a number of women were travelling while actually in labour.

The problem was being experienced at all three of Dublin's maternity hospitals.

Despite the result of the birthright citizenship referendum in 2004, the anchor baby phenomenon never went away, but was curtailed. We might be able to see by how much when this year's census results are released.

I won't get into it too much now. Here's a clip from season 2 of the RTÉ series about the Rotunda maternity hospital.

A Nigerian discovers she's pregnant so she flies to Dublin, claims asylum and delivers triplets. I heard another series of the show featured a second Nigerian with the exact same story — triplets and everything.

If you watch any of the show, a massive proportion of the mothers featured are foreign.

A tragic story I saw during the week: The child of one Eastern European couple suffered an acute brain injury during his birth as his mother's caesarean section was delayed due to the unavailability of a theatre.

They were awarded €19 million.

It's now 9PM so you are legally required to fill in the 2022 census. I wonder how many of you are breaking the law...😱

Just heard that the Child Benefit is paid at double the normal monthly rate for each child if you have triplets.

So that's €840 a month, no questions asked until they're 17 years old. Love to know how many foreign women are delivering triplets here...